The Pull of the Stars

by Emma Donoghue

  Bridie murmured, Look at that. Can’t suck it exactly, but he’s glugging it down, no bother to him.

  Little by little, the White boy took his whole meal while the two of us watched. He swallowed as if he knew he had only one task in the world and his future depended on it.

  I heard baritone singing in the passage. Two little boys had two little toys…

  Groyne, of course.

  I took the drowsing baby. Could you go and shush the man, Bridie?

  She hurried out.

  But rode back in the next minute in the wheelchair Groyne was pushing. Bridie was holding imaginary reins, pretending to giddy-up while the two of them carried on the song.

  Did you think I would leave you dying,

  When there’s room on my horse for two?

  Climb up here, Joe, we’ll soon be flying,

  I can go just as fast with two.

  I said without heat, This is a sick ward, you pair of foolish gamallooks.

  The orderly neighed softly and tipped the chair back on its little rear wheels. Carriage for Mrs. Garrett.

  Bridie climbed out, laughing sheepishly.

  When I turned to apologise to Delia Garrett, she was weakly smiling. She said, I sing that one to my little girls.

  Won’t they be delighted to have you home?

  She nodded, a sudden tear spangling off her chin.

  I put down the White baby and got Delia Garrett into the wheelchair, then hung her bag on the handle. Her hands lay in her lap, her blouse loose on her belly. She looked pretty in a half-destroyed way.

  Thank you, Nurse Julia, said Delia Garrett. Thank you, Bridie.

  Goodbye, we chimed.

  Best of luck, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

  The younger woman couldn’t say You too to this bereaved mother, so she only smiled wanly and nodded at her.

  Groyne pushed Delia Garrett off down the passage.

  Bridie and I turned to each other.

  Oh, the secrecy and heat of that glance.

  Then, without a word, we made up the empty bed on the right, to be ready for whoever would arrive next.

  When the sun came up a little later, a band of light cut in the ward’s window. Bridie looked see-through to me today, as if made of bones and light, wearing her flesh like a dress.

  Bridie sneezed so suddenly that Eunice jerked and fell away from her mother.

  Sorry, said Bridie, it’s the sunlight.

  I told her, It sometimes makes me sneeze too.

  Mary O’Rahilly reattached the baby’s mouth to her nipple, expert already.

  Honor White was sleeping, and there was no other patient to hear, so I found I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to talk to Mary O’Rahilly.

  I leaned over her bed and said under my breath (since I wasn’t supposed to be saying this at all), May I ask you something, dear? Something rather personal.

  Her eyes went wide.

  Does Mr. O’Rahilly ever…lose his temper?

  A carefree wife might have answered, Doesn’t everyone?

  But Mary O’Rahilly shrank back a little, which told me Bridie had guessed right.

  Coming round to the other side of the bed, Bridie asked: He does, doesn’t he?

  The woman was barely audible. Only when he’s taken spirits.

  I told her, That’s an awful shame.

  Bridie pressed on. How often?

  Mary O’Rahilly’s eyes slid back and forth between us. It’s hard for him, being out of work.

  Oh, I know, I said. It must be.

  She assured us, He’s very good to me most of the time.

  I’d ventured into these deep waters with no plan for getting out the other side. Now that Mary O’Rahilly had confessed the truth, what in the world was I going to advise her to do? She’d be taking her baby home in six days or less, and neighbours made a point of never coming between man and wife.

  I made my voice firm. Tell him you won’t stand for any more of that, especially not now there’s a baby in the house.

  Mary O’Rahilly managed an uncertain nod.

  Bridie asked, Would your father take you in if it came to it?

  She hesitated, then nodded again.

  Tell your husband that, then.

  I pressed her: Will you?

  Bridie added sternly: For Eunice. So he’ll never do the same to her.

  Mary O’Rahilly’s eyes were wet. She whispered, I will.

  The baby pulled her head away and whimpered.

  That ended the conversation.

  Hold her upright now, I told Mary O’Rahilly, lean her face in your hand and rub her back to help her burps out.

  I looked over at Honor White. Still out like a light, her head flopped sideways on the pillow.

  No. Not sleeping.

  My throat locked. I leaned over to examine her face. Eyes open, not breathing.

  Bridie asked, What’s the matter?

  I slid my fingers under the wrist that lay on the sheet. Still warm, but no pulse at all. I tried the side of Honor White’s pale throat too, just to be sure.

  Eternal rest grant unto her, I whispered, and let perpetual light shine upon her.

  Ah no! Bridie rushed over.

  I stroked Honor White’s lids shut. I crossed her white hands on her breast.

  I swayed; suddenly I couldn’t hold myself up. Bridie hauled my head down onto her shoulder and I held on tight enough to hurt. I could hear Mary O’Rahilly weeping over her baby girl.

  I made myself pull back, straightened up. Bridie, could you ever go for a doctor?

  When she was gone, I stared at the White boy. His little snuffles and tentative flailings. Had my donated blood and all our efforts only rushed his mother into the arms of the bone man?

  Dr. Lynn came in looking worn. Nurse Power, what a sad thing.

  She checked the dead woman no less thoroughly for it being hopeless. Then she filled in the certificate.

  I had to ask, in an uneven voice: Was it the transfusion reaction, would you say?

  The doctor shook her head. The pneumonia’s strain on her heart, more likely, exacerbated by labour, haemorrhage, and chronic anaemia. Or possibly a blood clot leading to a pulmonary embolism.

  She drew the sheet up and over the statue’s face, then turned her glinting glasses on me. We’re doing our level best, Nurse Power.

  I nodded.

  And one of these days, even this flu will have run its course.

  Really? Mary O’Rahilly asked. How can you be sure?

  The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.

  Bridie frowned. This grippe’s a form of life?

  Dr. Lynn nodded as she covered a yawn with her hand. In a scientific sense, yes. A creature with no malign intention, only a craving to reproduce itself, much like our own.

  That thought bewildered me.

  Besides, pessimism’s a bad doctor, she added. So let’s keep our hopes up, ladies. Now, Mrs. O’Rahilly, I’ll have a look at you and your bonny newborn.

  After the doctor examined Mary O’Rahilly, she peered into the White baby’s mouth. Has he kept a feed down?

  I told her, Three.

  Good lad. Filius nullius now, I suppose, she added soberly—nobody’s son, a child of the parish. I suppose he’ll be sent over to the institution where she was staying?

  Into the pipe, I thought. I nodded.

  The doctor said under her breath, Once this is over, Miss Ffrench-Mullen and I are hatching great plans to found our own hospital specifically for the infants of the poor.

  How splendid!

  Won’t it be, won’t it just. Rooftop wards, good nurses of any denomination, all the women doctors we can hire, nanny goats for fresh milk…

  I caught Bridie’s eye and almost laughed; it was the nanny goats.

  Dr. Lynn added, Also a holiday home in the country to restore the mothers.

  Mary O’R
ahilly said, That sounds lovely.

  I’ll send up orderlies for Mrs. White, the doctor told me on her way out.

  No next of kin on the woman’s chart, I remembered. That meant—I flinched—a pauper’s burial.

  I took the nail out of the wall and readied my watch for the scratch.

  Bridie whispered: Can I do it?

  If you like.

  I passed over the watch and nail.

  She turned away from Mary O’Rahilly discreetly. She found a space and scored the silver with a deep, neat circle for Honor White.

  I wondered how many more mothers I’d have to mark on my watch over the decades to come. The lines would overlap, lying together, tangles of hair. My words came out huskily: Such a number.

  Bridie said, But think of all the others. The women going about their lives. The children growing.

  I stared at the White baby. Arms little thicker than my thumbs flung wide on the crib mattress as if to embrace the world.

  Groyne marched in, carrying a stretcher as he might a shield. Nurse Power, I hear you’ve lost another one.

  That made me sound like a careless child dropping pennies.

  Behind him, O’Shea clasped his hands to hide their tremor.

  Groyne looked at the cot on the left. Ah, so the scarlet woman’s gone west.

  I ignored that slur on Honor White and wondered who’d told the orderlies she wasn’t married.

  In the shades now, he said to O’Shea with a melancholic relish. Riding the pale horse…

  I asked, Is it all a pure joke to you, Groyne? Are we just meat?

  Everyone stared at me.

  After the event in question, you mean, Nurse? He slashed his throat with one finger, smiling. In my view, we are. Napoo, finito, kaput.

  He tapped his sternum and added, Your humble friend included.

  I couldn’t think of a riposte.

  Groyne made me a stiff little bow and laid the stretcher on the floor.

  O’Shea helped him set Honor White’s draped body down on it, and they carried her out.

  Her baby, in the crib, showed no sign of knowing what he was losing.

  I busied myself stripping her cot.

  Bridie asked softly, Why are you so hard on Groyne?

  I bristled. Don’t you find him grotesque? The constant ditties, the morbid vulgarity of the man. Went off to war but never got within whiffing distance of a battle, and now he swans around here, the greasy bachelor, trying out his music-hall numbers on women in pain.

  Mary O’Rahilly looked disconcerted.

  I knew I shouldn’t be speaking this way in front of a patient.

  Bridie said, He’s not a bachelor, actually. What’s the word? Not just a widower, but someone who used to be a father.

  My heart was hammering. When was this?

  Years and years ago, before the war. Groyne lost his whole family to the typhus.

  I cleared my throat and managed to say, Sorry, I wasn’t aware. I suppose the word is still father, even if…how many children?

  He didn’t tell me.

  How did you learn all this, Bridie?

  I asked had he a family.

  I was so ashamed. I’d assumed Groyne had made it to this point in his life unscathed because he’d come home from the war with a steady grip, an unmelted face, his conversational powers unimpaired. I’d never managed to look past the jokes and songs to the broken man. Hale and hearty and in torment; trapped here without those he loved, serving out his time. Groyne could have drunk away his military pension, but no, he was here every day by seven a.m. to carry the quick and the dead.

  Mary O’Rahilly said, I don’t mean to bother you, Nurse Power…

  After some hemming and hawing she admitted that her nipples were very painful, so I took down a jar of lanolin to rub into them.

  I checked Honor White’s baby but his nappy was still dry. So weak and small he looked to me all of a sudden; was Sister Luke right not to rate his chances?

  I said to Bridie, We need to baptise young Mr. White.

  Now? she asked in a startled voice. Us?

  Well, there’s no priest at the hospital today, and any Catholic’s allowed to do it if it’s urgent.

  Mary O’Rahilly asked with an uneasy thrill, Have you christened babies before, Nurse?

  Not yet, but I’ve seen it done on a few.

  (Dying ones, I didn’t say.)

  I can remember the words, I assured her.

  Bridie objected: But we don’t know what she wanted to call him.

  True, and that troubled me. Honor White had been so veiled and bleak, and I’d thought there’d be time…

  Bridie said grimly, Still, I suppose it’s better we pick a name than the staff wherever he ends up.

  I asked her, Will you be godmother?

  A half laugh.

  No, but will you, Bridie? It’s a solemn thing.

  As if she were at a circus, Mary O’Rahilly cried, Go on!

  So Bridie scooped up the White boy and stood like a soldier.

  I wondered if we should play it safe with one of the more common saints. I said aloud, Patrick? Paul?

  John? That was from Mary O’Rahilly. Michael?

  Dull, dull, Bridie complained.

  I stared into his small face. Maybe a nod to the final tweak the potter had given the clay? Harelipped; what was that Gaelic phrase Dr. Lynn had used for it, bearna something? I said, Let’s call him Barnabas.

  Bridie considered the baby clasped in her left arm. I like that.

  Mary O’Rahilly said, Rather distinguished.

  Bridie turned her head sharply and let out a huge sneeze, her sleeve flying up to cover it. Sorry!

  Then she sneezed again, even louder.

  Mary O’Rahilly asked, Are you all right?

  I’ve just picked up a bit of a cold. Must have sat in a draught last night. (Bridie winked at me.)

  I remembered the roof. Was I blushing?

  I began in a ceremonial tone, Bridie Sweeney, what name do you give this child?

  She said solemnly, Barnabas White.

  What do you ask of God’s church for Barnabas?

  Ah…baptism?

  I nodded. Are you as his sponsor ready to—

  (The traditional phrase was Help the parents.)

  —help Barnabas?

  I am.

  In the absence of holy water, ordinary boiled would do. I fetched a basin and poured water into a glass. I asked, Hold him over the basin, would you, Bridie?

  I steadied my hands and my voice. This next bit, the Latin, was the most important. Ego te baptizo, Barnabas, in nomine Patris—

  As I trickled it over his forehead, I thought he might furrow his brow, but no.

  Et Filii—

  I poured again.

  Et Spiritus Sancti.

  A third time, trickling the clear liquid, calling down the Holy Spirit on the boy.

  Bridie broke the silence: Is it done?

  I nodded and took Barnabas out of her hands.

  She drained the rest of the glass in one gulp.

  I blinked at her.

  Sorry, I’ve that mad thirst on me still.

  My pulse skidded with fright.

  A pink sheen across her freckled cheeks; two spots of colour high on her cheekbones. She’d never looked prettier.

  I put Barnabas down in his crib and set the back of my hand to Bridie’s forehead. A little feverish. Are you feeling poorly?

  Bridie admitted, A bit dizzy, that’s all.

  She refilled the glass from the jug and knocked that back in one long swallow, her throat contorting as it worked.

  I said, Easy, easy.

  A whoop of laughter. I can’t seem to get enough water.

  It was then that I heard it, the faintest creak as she spoke, an infinitesimal music from deep in her lungs, wind in a far-off tree.

  I guarded my expression. Any trouble catching your breath at all?

  She yawned widely. Only because I’m tired. And my throat alw
ays gets a bit scratchy when I’ve a cold.

  But her nose wasn’t running as it would in the case of the common cold.

  My mind ticked like an overwound clock, checking off each sign I’d observed without registering it till now:

  Sneezing.

  Sore throat.

  Thirst.

  Dizziness.

  Restlessness.

  Sleeplessness.

  Clumsiness.

  A touch of mania.

  I found I didn’t want to name it. But that was superstition. I said briskly, Well, it can’t be this flu, because nobody gets it twice.

  Her mouth twitched.

  Bridie!

  She didn’t answer.

  All at once I was a raging fury. You said you’d had it before, you’d had it ages ago.

  (The first morning, she’d told me that. Two mornings ago—was that all? It felt like a lifetime since she’d sauntered into my ward unmasked, unprotected.)

  Bridie’s eyes slid away. That could have been the ordinary old flu I had then, I suppose. Or maybe it’s only the ordinary old kind I’m getting now?

  I had to bite my lip to stop myself from saying, The only flu anyone’s catching these days is the dangerous kind.

  Christ Almighty. Two days for incubation, which meant she’d likely picked it up right here, in this little hothouse of contagion.

  I tried to keep my voice unshrill. Are you aching at all?

  One of her shrugs.

  I put a hand on her elbow. Where, Bridie?

  Oh, a bit here and there.

  She touched her forehead, her neck, the back of her skull.

  I wanted to pound her; I wanted to embrace her. Anywhere else?

  Her hand moved to her shoulder blades, the small of her back, the long bones of her thighs. She twisted away and sneezed convulsively against her sleeve.

  A little sheepish, she said, Well, seems as if I’ve got it, all right. Or it’s got me.

  It struck me that the dots of colour were more red than pink, almost gaudy; face paint in a Christmas pantomime. (Had Bridie ever been taken to a pantomime?) Red to brown to blue to black.

  Mary O’Rahilly was telling her, This grippe’s not so bad, I’ve had worse before.

  The young mother meant well, but I could have shaken her.

  In a matronly tone, I made myself say, Indeed, you’ll be fine, Bridie.

  She was starting to shiver, I noticed.

  Rest, that’s the thing. Let’s get you into bed right away.